Las Cruces Officer Confronts Suspect With Extensive Criminal History | New Mexico

A routine trespassing call in Las Cruces, New Mexico, turned into a deadly confrontation that claimed the life of Officer Jonah Hernandez. Body-camera and surveillance footage later released by police captured the moments leading up to the attack—and raised difficult questions about a suspect whose criminal history stretched back years.

On the afternoon of February 11, a call came into police in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The complaint sounded relatively straightforward: a man was reportedly trespassing on private property near the 300 block of South Valley Drive.

For the person who made the call, it was another troubling encounter with someone she said had repeatedly been on the property. She wanted an officer to come out and see if the situation could be resolved.

No one responding to that call could have known how quickly an ordinary police contact would become a deadly attack.

The officer sent to investigate was 35-year-old Las Cruces Police Officer Jonah Hernandez.

He would not return home that evening.

 

 

 

 

A Call That Seemed Routine

According to police and subsequently released footage, the incident began after a woman contacted 911 about a man on the property.

Security video showed a man wearing a dark hoodie walking around the area before eventually sitting beneath a carport.

The caller asked whether an officer could come by and confront him, apparently hoping the presence of law enforcement would convince the man to leave.

That officer was Jonah Hernandez.

Hernandez had been with the Las Cruces Police Department for approximately two years. On that Sunday afternoon, he responded to what appeared to be a relatively routine trespassing complaint.

There was no indication at the beginning of the encounter that it would become one of the most tragic calls in the department's history.

Hernandez approached the man beneath the structure.

His body camera was recording.

The footage begins with a remarkably ordinary exchange.

“How's it going boss?”

The man responded.

Hernandez continued asking questions, attempting to establish who the man was and why he was there.

“You been staying here for a while? Is this your place?”

The man denied calling police.

For several moments, the interaction appeared conversational.

Then everything changed.

The Man Under the Carport

Police later identified the man as 29-year-old Armando Silva.

According to authorities, Silva had an extensive history of interactions with the criminal justice system.

That history included previous charges involving marijuana possession, kidnapping, aggravated battery and drug possession. In 2015, Silva was convicted of kidnapping and aggravated battery against a household member and received a four-year prison sentence followed by two years of parole.

Later, in 2019, a parole officer found Silva in possession of methamphetamine, resulting in another controlled-substance case.

That case was eventually dismissed in 2022 after prosecutors cited the unavailability of witnesses.

In 2023, Silva faced another battery case. That case was also dismissed, although officials later disputed how the court record should be interpreted regarding the reason for the dismissal.

By February 2024, Silva was once again in contact with law enforcement.

This time, the encounter would have fatal consequences.

The Attack

The body-camera and surveillance footage released by the Las Cruces Police Department shows the encounter escalating with little warning.

Hernandez was speaking with Silva when Silva suddenly produced a large knife.

The situation became violent almost immediately.

Hernandez attempted to move away from the attack.

But the officer fell.

Silva then attacked him repeatedly.

Nearby surveillance cameras captured portions of the confrontation while Hernandez's body camera recorded the encounter from his perspective.

For viewers watching the footage afterward, one of the most striking elements is how ordinary the encounter appears only moments before the violence begins.

There is no dramatic chase.

No high-speed pursuit.

No barricaded suspect.

No warning that an apparently routine call is about to become a fight for an officer's life.

Just a police officer attempting to resolve a complaint.

And then, suddenly, a deadly attack.

Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story later described the released footage as extraordinarily difficult to watch.

A Stranger Sees What Is Happening

The attack was witnessed by people who happened to be nearby.

A couple driving through the area stopped after seeing the situation unfold.

One of them moved toward Hernandez to help.

At the same time, a 911 call was placed.

The emergency dispatcher was told that an officer had been attacked and was down.

The situation was still unfolding.

According to police, a witness intervened and shot Silva.

Silva was fatally wounded.

When additional officers and emergency personnel arrived, they found both men critically injured.

The immediate threat had ended.

But for Officer Hernandez, the injuries were catastrophic.

He was transported to MountainView Regional Medical Center.

Despite efforts to save him, Hernandez died that evening.

He was 35 years old.

He left behind his wife and two young sons.

The First Officer Killed in the Department's History

The death of Jonah Hernandez carried another painful distinction.

According to local reporting, Hernandez became the first Las Cruces Police Department officer killed in the line of duty in the department's history.

The significance was not lost on the community.

A police department accustomed to responding to emergencies suddenly found itself responding to the death of one of its own.

The radio traffic from the scene captured the urgency.

An officer was down.

The scene was not secure.

Additional police, fire and emergency medical units were dispatched.

The same system that Hernandez had worked within every day was now racing to save his life.

But it was too late.

What Investigators Learned About Silva

As investigators reconstructed the incident, attention turned toward Silva's background.

Authorities described a history that included repeated encounters with the justice system.

KOAT reported that Silva had previously faced charges including drug offenses, kidnapping and aggravated assault. His 2015 conviction for kidnapping and aggravated battery resulted in prison time and parole.

There were also later drug and battery cases that did not result in convictions.

The details became part of the public discussion following Hernandez's death.

Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story publicly criticized what he viewed as failures in the criminal justice system, arguing that Silva's history represented a broader problem. Those comments were the chief's assessment of the system and should be distinguished from the underlying court records and case outcomes.

Other officials urged caution in interpreting individual case dismissals.

Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart, for example, disputed the interpretation that one 2023 case had simply been dismissed because a sheriff's deputy failed to appear, pointing instead to the prosecutor's role as reflected in the case record.

That distinction matters.

The criminal history is part of the story.

But so are the circumstances surrounding each individual case.

The Body Camera Tells a Different Kind of Story

Body-camera footage can make an incident like this feel immediate.

Unlike a written police report, the camera shows the environment, the officer's movements and the seconds immediately before an encounter changes.

In Hernandez's case, the footage provides a record of the officer approaching Silva and attempting to communicate with him before the attack.

That is what makes the footage so difficult to watch.

The beginning is mundane.

The questions are simple.

The officer appears to be trying to establish what is happening.

There is no indication that the next few seconds will become fatal.

Then the knife appears.

And the entire nature of the call changes.

For Hernandez, there would be no opportunity to return to the patrol car, write a report and move on to the next call.

A trespassing investigation had become a life-and-death struggle.

The Witness Who Intervened

The incident did not end because additional police arrived in time.

Instead, a civilian witness intervened.

According to investigators and later reporting, the witness shot Silva after seeing the attack on Hernandez.

The witness then remained at the scene and helped call for emergency assistance.

The decision to intervene created another major question for investigators: whether the civilian would face criminal charges for the shooting.

District Attorney Gerald Byers later said the witness would not be prosecuted for stopping the attack.

The decision brought the immediate legal questions surrounding the shooting to a close.

But it could not change what had already happened to Hernandez.

A Community Left to Grieve

In the days following the attack, Las Cruces mourned.

A blue-line flag appeared near the intersection of North Valley Drive and Amador Road.

Police officers, firefighters and members of the public gathered to remember Hernandez.

His body was eventually transported to his hometown of El Paso, Texas, where he was laid to rest on February 21, 2024.

Behind the uniform was a husband and a father.

Hernandez's death was not simply the loss of a police officer during a dangerous call.

It was the loss of a family member whose final moments were captured by the very technology officers wear to document their work.

What the Footage Leaves Behind

The case illustrates one of the fundamental realities of police work: danger does not always announce itself.

A call categorized as trespassing can become a violent confrontation.

An apparently calm conversation can turn into an attack within seconds.

And an officer who begins an interaction expecting to resolve a relatively minor complaint may suddenly be fighting for his life.

The footage also leaves viewers with difficult questions about the broader system surrounding an individual offender.

Silva had a documented criminal history.

Some cases resulted in convictions.

Others were dismissed.

Officials disagreed about how some of those outcomes should be interpreted.

And after Hernandez's death, those previous encounters inevitably became part of the public conversation about what could have been done differently.

Those questions extend beyond one officer, one suspect or one afternoon in Las Cruces.

They involve how police respond to repeat contacts, how courts handle criminal cases, how parole and supervision work, and how communities respond when people repeatedly come into contact with the justice system.

Jonah Hernandez's Final Call

On February 11, 2024, Jonah Hernandez responded to a call.

He approached a man under a carport.

He asked questions.

He attempted to determine why the man was there.

His body camera recorded those moments.

Then the encounter became violent.

A civilian intervened.

Emergency responders arrived.

And a Las Cruces police officer who had gone to work that afternoon never returned home.

The Las Cruces Police Department continues to remember Hernandez as part of its history. In 2026, the department marked the second anniversary of his death with a private memorial. The department stated that Hernandez had served approximately two years with LCPD and left behind his wife and two sons.

For the public, the body-camera footage provides a record of what happened.

For his colleagues and family, however, the footage represents something much more personal.

It is the final record of an officer carrying out what began as an ordinary duty call.

A call that lasted only moments.

A call that changed everything.

Officer Jonah Hernandez was 35 years old. His final assignment began as a trespassing complaint on South Valley Drive in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It ended with the first line-of-duty death in the history of the Las Cruces Police Department.